The International Friendship and Reconciliation Trust, of which Maj Malins was a former chairman, took up the project.

BBC: England

Maj Philip Malins, from Solihull in the West Midlands was held by the Japanese in Burma during World War II.

BBC: England

In 2010 Maj Malins also became only the second non-Japanese national to be awarded the Order of the Rising Sun, Gold and Silver Rays for his reconciliation work.

BBC: England

Maj Malins was a veteran of both Burma and Dunkirk and he also won the Military Cross for leading a mission in French Indochina after the war had ended.

BBC: England